Coach Virender Kumar acknowledges things are tough. “Sushil also had the same difficulties, but he had said he’ll win a medal and he did. Here at the stadium, there are wrestlers from all over the country who are living in these conditions, and I hope they are all inspired by what he has done. Wrestlers don’t get jobs, so many are unwilling to take it up seriously, but now things will be different,” he says.

Even at NIS, Patiala, where India’s Beijing-bound wrestlers were training, the conditions had been difficult. Before they left for the Olympics, the wrestlers had told The Indian Express that the “callous attitude of the Sports Authority of India (SAI) administration could seriously hamper India’s medal prospects”.

“Right from filling water-coolers to sweating it out in wrestling halls with not even air-cooling facilities, it was tough for them,” said a local wrestler on Wednesday. “I have seen with my eyes how the wrestling staff practised in the summer heat. But still they managed to get a medal.”